


Fighting Stolen Breaths

by Hollenka99



Series: TLoJJ-Verse [10]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen, Terminal Illnesses, tuberculosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23296006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hollenka99/pseuds/Hollenka99
Summary: 1932 is a horrible year for Jameson.
Series: TLoJJ-Verse [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1247246
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Fighting Stolen Breaths

**Author's Note:**

> Disappears for like 4 months then post angst about Jameson's last few months for World TB Day. I mean, I'm me, what did you expect?
> 
> Might try write something more hopeful with Henry later.

The cough that refuses to disappear is the thing that alerts him. The fever and fatigue are worrying too. Still, his first self-diagnosis is simply influenza. That is until he recalls his meeting with Maggie Powell in December. The spots of blood mixed with phlegm cannot be ignored.

The doctor doesn’t have to tell him the most likely outcome. He already knows. The question of prognosis is not ‘Will I?’ but instead 'How long?’

The truth is there isn’t really an exact way to say for certain. For some, it only takes a handful of months, if that. For others, it can drag on for a year or two. Jameson knows he is likely on the briefer end of the spectrum. January 1st 1932 was the last New Year’s he was to celebrate and he hadn’t even known it.

He doesn’t tell the children at first. He even lies to his wife about the severity of his illness. His bedroom becomes a quarantine zone. Still, he helped raise intelligent children and Oliver is the one to suggest he leave for a sanatorium. Reluctantly, he does.

He’ll fight stolen breaths for his children.

They need him to come home. Likewise, he needs to ensure he sees Siobhan and Nora again. It’s been too long for him to go without doing so.

The Barlow Respiratory Hospital is a decent establishment. He makes them promise to not release any information regarding his admittance there. He’d prefer for the public not to know he is gravely ill. If there are still members of his personal circle who don’t know, why should anyone who reads a newspaper be aware before them?

The routine is tedious. He must lie down in the fresh air, as many hours of the day as possible. He sneaks in writing wherever he can. He promised Maggie Powell he’d write a story with skeletons and he has to leave Nora something. His youngest daughter will never have memories of him, not like her siblings. This is the least he can do for her.

June arrives and it becomes apparent he is not getting better. In fact, his health seems to be steadily declining. By his reasoning, there wasn’t much point to staying at Barlow. Some had it within them to take to the treatments. Others, like Jameson, simply didn’t respond to the efforts as hoped. He’d taken a chance and all it had brought him was nothing but wasted time.

Anthony is back from Berkeley when he returns home. He shows his father a picture of newborn twins, his first grandchildren. They are beautiful. A little boy and girl. He wishes his eldest son good luck with fatherhood.

He keeps fighting stolen breaths for the grandchildren he knows he’ll never meet.

Not just James and Genevieve. No, those are the first two of who knows how many. Anthony is still 19 and the only one of his siblings to reach adulthood so far. Jameson has 7 children who are all probably going to have some of their own in the coming decades. So many individuals he’ll never hear refer to him as Grandpop. Just another aspect of life this disease is robbing him of.

Anthony also alerts Siobhan to the situation behind his back. Reading her handwriting has never hurt more when her response is delivered. She is angry and desperate, as she has every right to be.

He keeps fighting stolen breaths for Siobhan.

She did make him promise, after all. And he would certainly hate for her to waste her energy marching straight down to the deepest depths of Hell to give him a piece of her mind.

Siobhan has always been so good to him. Even when he hasn’t deserved it. Here she is, risking her own health to care for him. Waking to see her smiling sweetly at him on that afternoon in late August triggers tears. They haven’t been in each other’s presence in four and a half years. Yet here they are, in this atrocious situation.

He fights stolen breaths for his family too.

Pearl and Clifford visit occasionally over the warm months. Sometimes all the visit entails is them signing to each other. Simply spend time in each other’s company while they still can. Mabel is briefly in Los Angeles as August turns to September. Her presence is comforting too. His sister is right, watching Nora play in the garden from his window is somewhat ridiculous.

For three weeks, Siobhan tends to him. She cools his forehead whenever he burns internally. She reassures him it really is fine to sleep. He’ll swear he honestly isn’t hungry but she’ll ensure he has eaten something each day. This disease has put him through a lot. But he can’t submit yet, he can’t. There’s Henry’s birthday and Oliver’s, and his own, there’s Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s Eve, there is so much he has to be there for. He has to persevere on.

So he fights and breathes, fights and breathes, fights and

rests.


End file.
